Have you ever filed a harassment complaint against a co-worker before?

I was a full time union rep for over ten years and in the extensive trainings I had about this topic, we learned the first thing you have to do is tell the person to stop. Then it was supposed to go first to the supervisor, the next time the person did it, and the supervisor had no choice but to send it up the line (as per protocol).

I’ve never had to report anyone as I usually addressed it head on!!! Personally, I think that there are a lot of stupid people who don’t have enough sense to realize that they are harassing anyone. For those people, I leave NO doubt. IF they do it in front of others, I point out that I’m feeling harassed & I am asking them right then & there to STOP it. IF they claim that they don’t mean to be harassing, I give specifics of WHY it bothers me leading back to I’m asking you to STOP right now!!! That way I have witnesses that I was feeling harassed & I had explained how harassed I was feeling to the person harassing me, & I had asked them to STOP!!! NOT once did I have to take it to my supervisor nor HR.

The first time I used that method, I was SCARED to death. After the fact, I realized that I had indeed laid the groundwork for a suit IF the problem persisted. Even the most dense person gets the message when you throw it straight in their face. It’s hard to deny what you’ve spent time trying to defend in public. PLUS, your supervisor is bound to hear most of it & will have a private chat with the individual about refraining from being so overt with their actions. This also helps to cover your butt IF it makes it all the way to HR because the supervisor can’t claim ignorance of the facts either…cuts out a LOT of the “he said, she said” BS that goes through the process when you begin with a written complaint!!! ALSO, it deters others from starting the harassment themselves because they don’t want to be called out in front of others!!!

We had an old saying as I was growing up, “the squeeky wheel gets the grease”. When YOU are the squeeky wheel, it’s not that hard to grease the squeak.

I’ll assume you told him directly more than once you were not interested or to stop what he was doing that made you uncomfortable.

I’ve never filed a complaint (never had reason to) but I think it’s very good you did.

I doubt he only harasses you. Even if they don’t believe your side at first, the company will hopefully keep an eye on him, and if another person files a complaint they will see a pattern.

Hopefully, your company handles the situation well.

You’ll likely do an interview, told not to talk to anyone and likely just carry on, except now you’ll feel awkward. But hopefully we will help save younger generations from creeps. Good job.